Monthly Archives: August 2015

Well, here it is on the eve of the 2015 SCBWI conference and I didn’t yet write about the books I bought last year at the 2014 SCBWI conference.

I read the books. I liked the books. But I didn’t get around to writing about them.

Instead I wrote a poem about all the feelings cycling through me during the conference.

To make it up to you, I’ll write about them soon and put a photo of naked ladies at the bottom of this short post.

I reread some of last year’s books. I liked them the second time through. But . . .

Oops, ran out of time.

Theme for the Conference was Sparkle and Shine. San Diego chapter went as a cloud of fireflies ala Eric Carle.

Books I purchased this year at the SCBWI Conference

In the aftermath of the 2015 SCBWI conference, I have this year’s stack of books in addition to last year’s books!

And most wondrous, better even than a stack of new books and the cause of great joy . . .

In the tradition of last year’s conference, I wrote a poem about the most important event of the decade—a grandchild.

Here’s the poem, which you are welcome to copy and use. Please credit me. You also have permission to adapt it; but, again, please credit it as an adaptation.

To Our Grandchild
by Cindy Schuricht

I gaze at your face
As you sleep against my heart.
Expressions float across your features
Like clouds drifting
Across the sky.

Eyes squeeze
And threaten rain,
A twitch, a smile,
The weather shifts.
The storm passes without a tear.

With the flare of your nostrils,
A soft breeze flutters.
I am your hill,
And you . . .
You are an ever-changing panorama.

Seven Days Later (now eleven)

An unexpected envelope appeared in our mail box last week.

Back to the books—I’ll read some of them a third time (they’re worth it), and I’ll get to this year’s books in a more timely manner . . . honest. To make it up to you, I’ll put a photo of a surprise at the bottom of this post.

Now for a couple of books that relate to the littlest people in our lives.

Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes, written by Mem Fox, illustrated by Helen Oxenbury, and published by HMH Books for Young People in 2010, is a treasure. At this year’s conference, Lin Oliver mentioned a toddler she always reads it to. And after I heard Mem Fox speak, I dashed over to the bookstore and bought it. It’s a deceptively simple rhyming book that tightens my throat whenever I try to read it aloud. I’m told it is a certain two-week old’s favorite book.

Sleepytime Me, written by Edith Hope Fine, illustrated by Christopher Denise, and published by Random House in 2014, is a book with calming rhymes that help a young child settle down to sleep. I’m certain it will also become a favorite.

These two books are illustrated in very different styles and I love both of them.

As promised . . . naked ladies. They visit every August long after the leaves have died back.

*Anybody remember the old Bob Newhart show where Bob and his wife run an inn? The neighbors are three brothers. Every time they visit, the oldest brother says, “Hi, I’m Larry. This is my brother Daryl and this is my other brother Daryl.”

I’ve always wondered if it was one of the longest joke set-ups ever. In one episode, one of the Daryls is** seduced by disco and runs away to the big city. Larry and the second Daryl look for the first Daryl saying, “We’re a day late and a Daryl short.”

**I considered writing “one of the Daryls’s seduced,” but changed my mind.